Decisions, Decisions

Decisions are bountiful. C corp vs. S corp. Disclose vs. Privacy. Launch vs. Build. They go on and on and on. 

Most agree that startups succeed best with a team of Cofounders, and I'll have to say I agree. Nothing is more exciting than getting one step closer to your goal, and doing so with your best buddies. Sharing is honestly half the fun, but it slows down the decision making. Now the major question, is that a good thing? I think yes.

Each step of the way, whether it be technical, administrative, or otherwise, you have to collaborate. Now my group initially decided that we would split the responsibilities up. Technical falling to one, creative to another, legal and financial to another, but that really hasn't held up. I think it is probably fear that causes us to break out and overreach, but also it's interest in the creation as a whole. If we wanted to do just one thing we would be content with a normal position in a normal company. 

So maybe this too is a good thing, but it is so damn slow. The process of incorporating for example actually only took 10 minutes thanks to Clerky, but actually getting around to doing it and everyone agreeing on it took weeks, and in the end everyone didn't agree with it, one of us just moved forward and did it. I think that is what it is going to take. 

Now I should note that we are not working in the same location. Not surprisingly, this makes things slower and more complicated. With that being said, there are plenty of tools that make it possible for us to still get things done. 

I think the best way to get through all these decisions is to just motivate everyone to be decisive on their own, and if we need to huddle up we can do so, but not make that the standard. We all trust one another enough to do business together, so we are just going to have to trust ourselves to make decisions and move forward. I'd rather deal with our disagreements than deal with our procrastination. 

Creating a startup is like half waking up in your sleep. You're thinking about a million different things, you feel an unknown anxiety, and you can't figure out why your arms don't work. At least that's been my experience with it so far.

In this blog I'm going to chronicle my experience/obsession with creating a startup. Myself, along with two friends, recently founded Tript Technologies. Hopefully there will be some enlightening moments come from saving my thoughts and experiences here in this blog.

Everyone says don't start a startup just to start a startup. Let me rephrase that. I heard Sam Altman say that in a Y Combinator lecture. I understand their notion that you should do it to solve an underlying problem or because you have a revolutionary idea that you strongly believe in. I agree that it requires a certain amount of conviction to lay yourself out there and take the risk to create, share, and innovate. With that being said, I'm not patient enough to take Sam's advice.

As a company we are founding from the outside in. We know we want to be entrepreneurs. We know we have the tolerance for risk, the drive to succeed, and the capacity to create. The three of us have been moderately successful in our brief careers, so we have more than enough confidence. The one thing we didn't have on day one? An idea. It started as Steven and I complaining about how we did not feel driven in our current positions at our companies. We begun brainstorming and soon after brought James into the mix. We have formed some ideas, we've defined our roles in the organization, we've begun developing a product, and we are beginning the process of incorporating...in Delaware. So we may be going about it ass backwards, but we are still going about it.

This blog will hopefully serve as an education to some and a source of amusement to all.

I'd like to think Stanford University, Y Combinator, Sam Altman, Paul Graham, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk. Your videos and lectures are a huge source of inspiration.